📌 Agenda for the South : Cancun

(from the archives)

The focus for developing countries at the upcoming Cancun WTO Ministerial must be on food and agriculture, says Suman Sahai.

The position held by the EU and the US on agriculture subsidies places enormous hurdles on developing country aspirations of entering markets in the North with agricultural produce of their own. Indeed, progress on agriculture negotiations at the Cancun Ministerial meeting have always seemed difficult. Still, what India should take to Cancun on the food and livelihood front is an aggressive posture on the unfinished Doha agenda, especially where it relates to TRIPS. (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights)

Although the subject of TRIPS and Public Health finds mention in the draft Cancun Ministerial document that has been circulated, there is continuing neglect of the impact of TRIPs on agriculture, food security, farmers’ rights and livelihood security. India should take the position that the rights of farmers and local communities have been reiterated in other conventions, notably the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources (ITPGR) and these must be reflected in the WTO, which must move to harmonise with the international developments.

It is for this reason that India has been advocating the linkage between the CBD and the WTO in its submissions to the TRIPS Review Council. The submission to the TRIPS Council is jointly made by Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Thailand, Peru and Venezuela. In order to protect the rights of local communities and their livelihood base, this group of countries is asking that the TRIPs Agreement be amended to provide for the following in the case of applications for patents relating to biological materials or to traditional knowledge:

1. Disclosure of the source and country of origin of the biological resource and of the traditional knowledge used in the invention
2. Evidence of prior informed consent , and
3. Proof of provision for fair and equitable benefit sharing

On TRIPs, it is unfortunate that some developing countries, including India have chosen not to support the proposal of the Africa Group. The Africa Group is asking for an outright ban on patents on all life forms, a position they have held consistently since 1999. This is a proposal very much in the interest of developing countries since patents on life forms at this early stage of development of key technologies, would strike at self-reliant development in the fields of agriculture and pharmaceuticals.

Developing countries should raise the issue of patents on life forms at Cancun and join other countries and civil society groups in supporting the Africa Group position to oppose patents on all life forms. Having this flexibility is important to give domestic industries a chance to grow and develop their own technologies and become globally competitive. Since the patent system is being introduced for the first time on biological materials, we should give ourselves space to grow, in a patent free environment for some time. Accepting patents on life forms today, will hand over the advantage to the foreign companies who are at present technologically stronger and well versed in the exercise of life form patents.

The draft Cancun declaration simply ignores several injunctions of the Doha declaration.

The Doha Ministerial had provided a mandate to address the outstanding implementation issues on a priority basis by end 2002 but this has not happened yet and there does not seem to be any effort on the part of developed countries to advance this issue. The Doha declaration was explicit. It instructs the Council for TRIPs, in pursuing its work program including the review of article 27.3(b) ( the article under which biological materials are handled) and Article 71.1 ( review in the context of any new developments) , to examine inter alia the relationship between the TRIPs Agreement, the CBD and the protection of traditional knowledge.

It further instructs that in pursuing this work, the TRIPs Council will be guided by Articles 7 and 8 of the TRIPs Agreement. Article 7 provides that IPR protection rather than becoming an instrument of unfair monopoly, should contribute to technology transfer and be mutually advantageous to producers and users of technology in a way that is conducive to social and economic welfare. Article 8 enjoins members of WTO to adopt measures to protect public health and nutrition and promote the public interest in vital sectors like food and medicine.

The draft Cancun declaration simply ignores these injunctions of the Doha declaration and moves ahead with an agenda that benefits the economies of the industrial countries while being largely oblivious to the interests of the developing world.

Another matter, which suffers neglect in the Cancun draft text, is the subject of Geographical Indications (GI), which is of great interest to the economies of agriculture dependent developing countries. The Cancun draft text mentions the need to work on GI for wines and spirits but does not mention expanding the scope of GI protection as the developing countries have been demanding. These countries, which are largely agriculture based, have several specialty products on which they wish to seek the form of IPR called Geographically Indicated Rights. Countries will have their own set of special products for which they will claim GI protection. India for example, is interested in protecting a range of products like Basmati rice, Darjeeling tea, Shahi lychees, Ratnagiri mangoes etc.

Geographical indications identify a product as originating in the territory of a member country or a specific region within it, to which a given quality; reputation or other characteristic of the product can be attributed. Basmati rice for example can be distinctly attributed to the low foothills of the Himalayan region, which used to constitute the greater Punjab. After partition, this region has been divided between India and Pakistan, so geographically indicated rights over Basmati rice belong to India and to Pakistan.

Provided in Articles 22 and 23 of GATT/ TRIPs, GI protection at present has been afforded only to specialty products belonging to the category of wines and spirits, products of the western world. Despite the efforts of developing countries, to expand the scope of the protection in Article 23, to include other products of special relevance to them, the industrialised nations have refused to allow GI protection for anything except the alcoholic beverages. The move to expand the scope of GI is supported by the European Union since it has a number of processed foods of its own, like cheese, ham and other dairy and processed foods for which it seeks exclusive rights under GI.

Paragraph 18 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration states: “With a view to completing the work started in the Council for Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights on the implementation of Article 23.4, we agree to negotiate the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines and spirits by the fifth session of the Ministerial Conference. We note that issues related to the extension of the protection of geographical indications provided for in Article 23 to products other than wines and spirits will be addressed in the Council for TRIPs pursuant to paragraph 12 of this Declaration.”

Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Thailand, Peru and Venezuela. must move aggressively at Cancun to garner support for the commitment made in this declaration, to increase the ambit of protection offered under Article 23 of TRIPs. Other countries too have an interest in protecting their (agricultural) products so mobilising support should not be very difficult. The US remains a staunch opponent of enhancing the scope of GI protection, supported by Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of whom are major agriculture exporting countries of products like cheese, ham and other processed meats. The strategy of the group wanting a broader scope of protection under GI should be to isolate the US with the support of the EU and other countries with a common interest.

There is some good news on the coordination front to pressure the EU-US combine. On the eve of the Cancun Ministerial, India along with China and 15 other countries have formed a block to oppose the EU-US pact in agriculture, concerned that the new proposal from EU-US pact could become the basis of negotiations on agriculture. The new group consists of members from Asia and Latin America and includes members of the Cairns Group which are major food exporting nations. This group will reiterate the demand of developing countries to access the agricultural markets of the developed countries by introducing a decrease in domestic and export support for agricultural products in both the US and EU.

This article appeared in India Together on 01 August  2003 -https://indiatogether.org/cancuntrp-agriculture/ 

📍Climate Change Will Spike Wheat Prices

One of the frightening consequences of climate change is rapidly diminishing water availability. Glaciers melting, disturbed and weak monsoons and extreme heat causing drying up of surface water sources like lakes, ponds and tanks will lead to conditions of severe water stress in the coming years.

The impending water scarcity is a growing threat to global food production, particularly for crops that depend on rainfall rather than irrigation. Globally, 80% of the arable land is rainfed, that is unirrigated and dependent on the monsoon. Only 20% of the arable land is irrigated. In India the figures are 45% irrigated land and 55% rainfed land. Severe water stress is projected to result in reduced harvests accompanied by a spike in food prices in the market and hunger among the poorer sections of society. 

In a Danish study done at the Centre for Climate Change in Aarhus University, scientists found a clear correlation between the area affected by severe water scarcity and global wheat prices. They showed that in the years when large areas were under severe water stress, there was a corresponding increase in wheat prices. When there is not enough moisture in the soil during key growing periods, harvests are likely to fail and food prices therefore rise.

Climate model projections suggest that water scarcity will expand as global warming progresses. The Aarhus study predicts that a temperature increase of about 3°C could raise global wheat prices three times relative to 2010. The reason why global wheat prices are particularly linked to severe water stress is because in most regions of the world, the crop is grown under the least favorable soil moisture conditions. Top wheat producers in temperate countries like Russia, US, Canada and Australia are likely to see falling wheat harvests and rising prices in the global market. The problem these countries will face is that they do not have a substitute crop for wheat. 

India however can cope better with the heat and water stress challenges of climate change because it does have a potential alternative or supplement to wheat. It has many varieties of millets that can be trialled as supplementary crops in the wheat season. Millets withstand high heat and water stress much better than wheat, and they can be cultivated in a wide variety of soils. Blessed with a large genetic diversity in millets, India can indeed counter the climate damage to wheat production. I believe targeted research will yield high yielding, nutritious varieties of millets as substitutes/ supplements to the wheat crop. 

📍Conserve Genetic Diversity to cope with Climate Change

India is home to the largest number of cattle in the world. It is estimated that of the roughly 1.6 billion cattle globally, 34 percent are to be found in India. The most important milch breeds (cows bred for milk) in India are the Sahiwal, Gir and Tharparkar. Another high yielder, the Red Sindhi originally from the Sindh-Balochistan area is now facing near extinction. Thanks to its immense genetic wealth of cattle and buffalo, India is the world’s largest milk producer. 

Clearly this unique genetic wealth must be conserved. Indigenous breeds of cattle are hardy and carry unique genetic traits like resistance to diseases and pests; they have a high tolerance to high heat and can ride out water stress. In addition, they can thrive on low input grass based diets. One need not emphasize the value of such traits in a time of global warming which is already bringing high heat and drought conditions as also higher incidence of new diseases. Genetic diversity is one of the most important tools available in the living world, whether plants, animals or microbes, to cope with the growing challenges of climate change.

Given its massive repository of indigenous cattle, accounting for a major share of global cattle genetic diversity, India carries a special responsibility for the conservation of this globally important genetic resource. We need to conserve these genes not just for ourselves but for the entire world. In addition to that, given its stake in securing its pole position in milk production, India should be particularly alert to conserving its cattle and buffalo genetic wealth. But is that the case?

Unfortunately, cattle genetic diversity in India faces severe threats and the continuing loss of unique native gene pools is cause for concern. The reasons are many but chief among them is the indiscriminate cross breeding of native breeds with imported high yielding breeds like Holstein-Friesian and Jersey in order to boost milk production. Little care was taken over the years to separate native cow populations and keep them isolated to conserve their unique genetic identity. This has resulted in the dilution of valuable genetic traits. In rural areas , economic pressures remain significant. Farmers are hence inclined to give in to the market requiring sustained high-volume milk production. This has resulted in lower yielding local breeds being abandoned.

The challenge therefore is to enable high milk production so that cattle farmers can earn better but also ensure that the genetic diversity of cattle breeds is not lost. Both must be balanced for long term sustainability of the sector. 

Effective conservation of cattle genetic diversity would need a mix of live animal management and long-term biological storage. Farmers and pastoralists who actively breed and maintain indigenous and heritage cattle breeds should be supported and their work documented. Conservation areas should be demarcated and animal husbandry practices must be improved. 

Cold gene banks should be established at national and regional levels to store semen, embryos, and somatic tissues. This genetic material will be valuable to override disease out breaks, severe droughts and fodder scarcity. India has already taken steps to establish cold conservation of animal genetic resources. It has set up the National Livestock Gene Bank in Karnal, Haryana where the genetic diversity of indigenous cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, camel, equines, and yaks is conserved. It is however weak on live animal management and needs to do far more there.

📌 INEQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT

There is something deeply unsettling about the way we pursue development in India today. We are increasingly fascinated by what is big and “modern” so airports, expressways and highways, bridges and tunnels are being built whether they are needed or not; the larger the concrete structures, the more impressive the development. It’s another matter that 15 regional airports had to suspend scheduled flights shortly after inauguration due to a lack of takers, high operating costs and being commercially non-viable. Nobody knows if these airports will ever become functional but the taxpayer’s money has gone down the drain.

Development is not seen in drastically reducing the Infant Mortality Rate or making functional, viable Primary Health Centres (PHCs) where a real doctor is available and there are real medicines in stock. Development is also not seen in building toilets for children, specially girls, in rural schools, connecting remote villages by proper link roads nor is it seen in upgrading the quality of education in schools and colleges in small towns and villages. Making available good quality health and education which should be the first priority of any government does not fit into the “Visible Symbols of Progress” template. And perversely, the government has shut down 94,000 government schools where poor children could study.

The Union Budget numbers tell you what kind of development is happening. Between 2013-14 and 2026-27, the share of education in total Union expenditure has fallen from about 4.6% in 13-14 to 2.5% in 26-27, while health remained stagnant at 2% in 13-14 and 26-27. In the same period, the allocation for roads and highways has risen from about 1.8 per cent in 13-14 to nearly 5.8 per cent in 26-27, almost trebled.

This is not an argument against highways and airports where they are needed. But what kind of development are we aspiring to if cities receive preferential treatment and the hinterland and its people are so neglected that they are forced to migrate in order to pursue some kind of healthcare and education. This is not development, this is discrimination.

📍BIOCHAR CAN BRING BACK NUTRITION IN OUR FOOD

There have been quite a few reports in recent times showing that the nutritive value of our food has been declining steadily. It would appear that in just one lifetime, the vital complex mineral mix our bodies need is now just half of what it used to be. So the spinach or carrots that we eat today have only half the nutrition of what our parents or grandparents got from their spinach and carrots.

The reason is that our soil and the nutrients in it are only a fraction of what there was earlier. What we did was to abandon the biological resilience inherent in our soils and opted for chemicals like urea to add nutrients. With this, the living ecosystem of bugs, worms and bacteria that lived in the soil and maintained its nutrition, went into decline. So how do we rectify this situation? An important part of the solution lies in the age old practice of Biochar.

Biochar, literally translated as charcoal or coal made from biological materials was known to ancient agricultural societies as far back as 2,500 years ago. Indigenous communities across the world, from the Amazon Basin to sub-Saharan Africa, have historically used biochar as a soil amendment to improve fertility and increase crop yields. These farming communities improved their weak acidic soils by adding a mixture of charcoal and biomass to it . This rich soil was self-generating and is still found to be fertile after all these years. A significant benefit from biochar use is its beneficial impact on soil structure. The addition of biochar increases soil porosity, creating spaces that enhance water infiltration and retention. This property is particularly beneficial in arid and semi-arid regions where water availability is limited, as it helps plants access water more efficiently during dry periods. 

When biochar is incorporated into the soil, it enhances the soil’s moisture-holding capacity and promotes microbial activity. This in turn produces compounds which increase crop yields. Studies have shown that soils amended with biochar exhibit higher levels of essential nutrients, leading to materially higher crop yields and more nutritious agricultural produce. So our spinach and carrots would become nutritious as before .

Other benefits of biochar

Biochar production has the potential to profitably deal with crop waste and to create a circular farming system. In Louisiana for instance, a 150 year old sugarcane farm is setting up biochar production as a solution to its multi-million ton piles of sugarcane waste/bagasse. Similarly, in Kenya, sugar producers are moving toward creating biochar from their massive piles of bagasse. This biochar is sold to farmers as a soil improvement package.

Farmers in India should be encouraged and supported to use this approach to deal with crop residue every season. Instead of burning this crop residue and adding to the already horrific air pollution, it can be used to produce biochar, a profitable revenue generating product to increase the fertility of their own farms and sell to other farmers.

📌 Protecting farmers, freeing the breeders!

(from the archives)

Suman Sahai discusses India's progressive legislation in the area of patents and protection for plant varieties.

One of the most controversial agreements that resulted from the Uruguay Round of trade talks (GATT, preceding WTO) is that relating to the granting of Intellectual Property Rights on biological materials through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) system. Under TRIPS member nations are required to grant patents on microorganisms, non/biological and microbiological processes as well as effective IPR protection for plant varieties. TRIPS provides a choice for protecting plant varieties. Members may choose from patents or a sui generis system (particular to the nation) or a combination of the two.

Most developing countries including India have decided not to have patents for plant varieties and have instead chosen the sui generis option. The sui generis system (translating roughly into self generating) means any system a country decides on, provided it grants effective Plant Breeders Rights. TRIPS does not specify what kind of Breeders Rights and it does not say what else a member state can put in its law, apart from Breeders Rights. In short, TRIPS is a flexible system leaving a lot to the discretion of members. As a response to the TRIPS agreement, India has started enacting a series of domestic laws to implement the commitments it has made. The Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers, Rights Act, 2001, is the Indian sui generis legislation.

Hailed as a progressive, pro/developing country legislation, this law provides for well-defined Breeder’s Rights as well as strong and proactive Farmers Rights. Its intent is the establishment of an effective system for protection of plant varieties, the rights of farmers and plant breeders and to encourage the development of new varieties of plants. The Act recognises the necessity of protecting the rights of farmers in respect of their contribution made in conserving, improving and making available plant genetic resources for the development of new plant varieties. In addition, there are clauses to protect the rights of researchers as well as the public interest. The Indian legislation is the first in the world to grant formal rights to farmers in a way that their self-reliance is not jeopardized.

Breeders Rights On registration of a particular variety, the plant breeder has rights of commercialization for the registered variety either in his/her own person or through a designated person. These rights include the right to produce, sell, market, distribute, import or export a variety, in short, full control over formal marketing. Violation of the breeder’s right can be construed at several levels. It applies to the variety itself as also to its packaging. Infringement will be established if the packaging is the same or even similar, such that the package could appear to be that of the Breeder. Legally, a similar looking package will be considered “Passing Off” and so actionable. Any one other than the breeder can not use the registered name or denomination. The use of the same or similar name in any way, by action or even suggestion, will constitute a violation and will be punishable. Penalties are prescribed for applying false denomination and for selling varieties to which false denomination is applied .

The breeders rights have been strengthened to the extent that if there is mere suspicion of violation or infringement, the onus of proving innocence is placed on the alleged violator. This is somewhat excessive and needs to be toned down. The normal course in law is for the accuser to furnish proof for the accusation and so it must remain in this case too. Penalties can range from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. ten lakh as well as a jail term ranging from three months to two years, depending on the severity of the damage caused. If the violator is actually selling , offering for sale or merely in the possession of a registered variety belonging to someone else, the punishment is somewhat worse. Repeat-offenders face more severe sentencing and penalties.

Protecting breeder’s rights ensures that there is sufficient incentive for the seed industry to invest. At the same time, it is important to recognize that IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) protection alone does not necessarily deliver a successful product. To be bought, a particular variety must decisively provide an advantage. Otherwise, it will fool the farmers for a few seasons and then fail.

An IPR system in a country should not grant such strong rights to breeders that farmers suffer and their livelihoods are threatened. On the other hand, the breeders’ innovation should be rewarded so that they continue to breed useful varieties to benefit agricultural and food security.

Farmers Rights The Act recognises the farmer not just as a cultivator but also as a conserver of the agricultural gene pool and a breeder who has bred several successful varieties. There are provisions for such farmers’ varieties to be registered with the help of NGOs so that they are protected against being scavenged by formal sector breeders. The law allows the farmer to sell seed in the way he has always done, with the restriction that this seed can not be branded with the Breeder’s registered name. In this way, both farmers and breeders rights are protected. The breeder is rewarded for his innovation by having control of the commercial market place but without being able to threaten the farmers’ ability to independently engage in his livelihood, and supporting the livelihood of other farmers.

The pivotal importance of the farmer having the right to sell (not save, not exchange, but sell) seed has to be seen in the context of seed production in India. In India, the farming community is the largest seed producer, providing about 87% of the country’s annual requirement of over 60 lakh tons. If the farmer were to be denied the right to sell, it would not only result in a substantial loss of income for him but far more importantly, such a step would displace the farming community as the country’s major seed provider. Legal sanction for farmers rights keeps the farming community alive and well as viable competitors and an effective deterrent to the take over of the seed market by the corporate sector. Control over seed production is central to food security which is in the forefront of national security.

Apart from the right to sell non-branded seed of protected varieties, the rights of farmers and local communities are protected in other ways too. There are provisions for acknowledging the role of rural communities as contributors of landraces and farmer varieties in the breeding of new plant varieties . Breeders wanting to use farmers varieties for creating Essentially Derived Varieties (EDVs) can not do so without the express permission of the farmers involved in the conservation of such varieties. Any one is entitled to register a community’s claim and have it duly recorded at a notified center. This intervention enables the registration of farmer varieties even if the farmers themselves cannot do this due to illiteracy or lack of awareness. If the claim on behalf of the community is found to be genuine, a procedure is initiated for benefit sharing so that a share of profits made from the use of a farmer variety in a new variety goes into a National Gene Fund.

Despite its good intentions of protecting the interests of the farming community, the formulation of this particular section is likely to create problems in implementation because the drafting is poor. The Gene Fund should be the recipient of all revenues payable to the farming community under various heads. Farming communities should collectively, rather than individually, access this money, except in clear cases where an identifiable farmer’s variety has been used. Farmers should have the right to decide how this money that they have earned will be spent. The use of the money should not be restricted to conservation or for maintaining ex situ collections.

The method for fixing and realising benefit sharing should be made simpler and easier to implement. One approach to fixing benefit sharing could be a system of lump-sum payments, based for example on (projected) volume of seed sale.

Protection Against Bad Seed In providing a liability clause in the section on Farmers Rights, the farmer in principle is protected against the supply of spurious and/ or poor quality seed leading to crop failures. But at present there is too much left to the discretion of the Plant Variety Authority which will fix the compensation. This could lead to arbitrary decisions and should be amended. (Sahai, 2001 a,b)

Rights Of Researchers All IPR systems must strike a balance between the monopoly granted to the IPR holder, in this case the plant breeder, and the benefits to society, in this case the farmers and consumers. Since nobody concerned with public interest would want plant breeding to shift into just a few hands, it is important to maintain competition and vitality in the plant breeding sector. That is why freedom and rights for other researchers to use all genetic material, including IPR protected material, is important. The Bill has provisions for researchers rights which allows scientists and breeders to have free access to registered varieties for research. The registered variety can also be used for the purpose of creating other, new varieties. The breeder can not stop other breeders from using his/her variety to breed new crop varieties except when the registered variety needs to be used repeatedly as a parental line. In that case authorisation is required.

There is however some difference of opinion. Some view that the Indian law actually grants very restricted rights to researchers because of the acknowledgment of Essentially Derived Varieties, EDV. It is felt that all kinds of research will become subject to the breeders authorization if a protected variety is used for research. In the Indian Act, the Breeders authorization is needed for making EDVs.

Protection Of Public Interest The PPV legislation includes public interest clauses, like exclusion of certain varieties from protection and the grant of Compulsory Licensing. To secure public interest, certain varieties may not be registered if it is felt that prevention of commercial exploitation of such variety is necessary to “protect order or public morality or human, animal and plant life and health or to avoid serious prejudice to the environment”.

The Act also provides for the granting of compulsory license to a party other than the holder of the Breeders certificate if it is shown that the reasonable requirements for seeds have not been satisfied or that the seed of the variety is not available to the public at a reasonable price. The breeder is entitled to file an opposition but should the charge be valid, the breeder may be ordered by the Authority to grant a compulsory license under certain terms and conditions including the payment of a reasonable license fee. Compulsory License however will not be awarded if the Breeder can demonstrate reasonable grounds for his inability to produce the seed.

This article is adapted from Suman Sahai, (2003) India’s Plant Variety Protection and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001, Current Science.

This article appeared in India Together on 01 May 2003 - https://indiatogether.org/ppvlaw-agriculture/

📌 Did India win or lose at Cancun?

(from the archives)

Bilateral deals will be harder to resist; India must strengthen the home front as well as regional partnerships, says Suman Sahai.

The fifth ministerial meeting of the WTO was held at the beach resort city of Cancun in Mexico. It started amidst controversy on 10 September and ended with a whimper on Sunday 14 September. Since its inception in 1995, all member states of the WTO hold minister level meetings every two years. The purpose is to review the progress of international trade, take stock of problems in implementation and try to find solutions. In actual fact, every ministerial meeting since the first one in 1995, have been used by the block of developed countries to further their trade interests, at the cost of the interests of developing countries. Developing countries, unable to resist the bullying of the developed countries in the first years, have now started rallying round and are becoming more articulate in projecting their interests.

From the Indian point of view, the second ministerial meeting held in Singapore in 1997 was particularly disastrous Our negotiating team was ill informed about the issues, there was no consultation with experts, so positions were not well developed and there was no clarity even on what Indian interests actually were. The Indian government team lost a lot of ground and successive efforts were devoted to undoing some of this damage. The Indian situation was only a little better at the third ministerial held at Seattle in 1999 but we were saved by the defiant action of African nations. Fed up with the high handed and condescending attitude of the western nations, the Africans staged a walk out and caused the Seattle Ministerial meeting to derail completely. This process was helped by the internal politics of the US, which was facing a general election. The US preferred to see the meeting collapse rather than have to make concessions to the developing world that would have made the incumbent government unpopular at home.

The Doha Declaration was the first time that at least some developing country concerns were acknowledged. A timetable for implementation was framed; now that will not be met.

Developing countries gained a foothold in the international trade negotiations two years later, in Doha. Here too, it was the African nations that were the key factor. On the one hand was the raging HIV/ AIDS epidemic in Africa, on the other, the refusal of the pharmaceutical multinational companies to supply cheap AIDS medication. The refusal of the large drug companies to allow other manufacturers, like those in India, to supply cheap AIDS medicines was the last straw that broke the back of public opinion. Public outrage orchestrated successfully by civil society groups led to concessions on implementing patent provisions under TRIPS when it came to addressing public health needs. Even as US companies objected in order to protect their patent and market interests, which would be hurt if another country were able to supply cheap AIDS medicines, a pro-poor declaration was made.

The 2001 Doha Declaration was the first time that at least some developing country concerns with respect to public health, biodiversity and indigenous knowledge were acknowledged. A timetable for implementation was framed that will not be met and it is now clear that the developed countries will drag their feet in taking on board the developing country concerns that find mention in the Doha declaration.

The encouraging thing at Cancun was that India went to the meeting better prepared than to any other ministerial meeting. India’s principal stand at the Cancun meet was to demand the dismantling of the heavy agricultural subsidies granted by the EU and the US to their farmers and hence seek market access for its own agricultural produce in their markets. The second most visible focus of the Indian position was the determination not to allow the Singapore issues to become part of future negotiating agenda. In the Singapore issues, India’s main objections were to allowing a multilateral deal on competition and on foreign investment. This has been an old Indian position. The determination to negotiate aggressively on agriculture was at least partly dictated by the impending general elections in 2004 and the knowledge that granting any concessions that would affect farmers at home would be suicidal for a government seeking re-election.

At Cancun the talks broke down when Kenya, the leader of the Africa Group, walked out of the Minister level Green Room discussion. This was partly because of their vehement opposition to inclusion of the Singapore issues. The main reason however was the obduracy of the US against granting any concessions in agriculture, especially cutting back the heavy cotton subsidies that hurt cotton farmers in Africa. Once Kenya walked out, the Mexican chairperson closed the meeting and the Cancun talks collapsed.

For developing countries, multilateral platforms are more benign than bilateral deals where the bargaining can be harsh and the pressure of the dominant partner more intense.

This development is being greeted at home as a victory. But is it one? True, India emerged out of the shadows to once again become an important player on the global trading platform. True, the developing countries led by India, Brazil and China came together to defend their interests and this developing country solidarity was welcome since it is so seldom in evidence at the WTO. India’s Commerce Minister emerged as an articulate and conciliatory world leader, bringing credit to his country, but his contribution would have been many times greater had he come home with a deal rather than without one.

The breakdown at Cancun does not serve India’s interests, nor for that matter the interests of other developing countries. For developing countries, multilateral platforms are more benign than bilateral deals where the bargaining can be harsh and the pressure of the dominant partner more intense. The pressures on the major players like the US and EU is far more intense at the WTO than it can ever be in a bilateral negotiation. Under intense global scrutiny (and cast as the bullies in any case), the US and EU are much more motivated to appear as ‘fair traders’ sensitive to developing country concerns instead of the aggressive and distinctly ‘unfair traders’ that they actually are. So it is easier for developing countries to gain concessions at the WTO than it is in bilateral negotiations.

The road ahead needs to be charted carefully. It must include at least three important steps: maintain a respectable rate of growth at home so that we increase our trading (and negotiating) capacity; work hard to cement the new developing country solidarity and maintain the momentum of a common interest through the next two years, till the next WTO Ministerial comes round. And finally, explore and develop regional trade interests. With China joining hands with India at Cancun and India having acquired at least an observer status in ASEAN, there should be a more deliberate pursuit of regional trading blocks. It would not be mistaken to prepare for the next WTO meeting by stepping up regional trade and strengthening regional partnerships.

This article appeared in India Together on 01 Sept 2003 - https://indiatogether.org/winlose-economy/